


On Holiday

by threesmallcrows



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Babysitting, Camping, F/F, F/M, Field Trip, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threesmallcrows/pseuds/threesmallcrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fine,” he says at last. “You go, Jamison goes. But if we hear even a hint of a rumor of—of explosives, or fires, or fights, or, or any sort of destruction—he comes straight back.”</p><p>“Good,” says Lena. Really, she thinks, how difficult can it be? She’s babysat Jamie and Jesse before. Shepherding them and forty-five other fourth-graders through a weeklong excursion in the wilderness shouldn’t be too bad. It’ll be lovely, to be surrounded by all that beautiful flammable nature. And all those adorable prey—er, animals. Out of reach of phone service and the security blanket of any 911 operator. Miles from any hospital.</p><p>Okay. Honestly, it might be kind of bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Your child set his _hair_ on _fire_.”

 

“That’s, uh, nice ma’am,” says Lena. “But he’s not really my—”

 

“ _Nice_!” the teacher bellows. Her nostrils flare like a bull’s. A dart of her spit flies straight into Lena’s cheek.

 

Lena scoots ever-so-slightly back. Maybe not the wisest choice of words.

 

“I may not be an English teacher, Ms. Fawkes, but I at least know what the definition of ‘nice’ _isn’t._ It isn’t smuggling a hot plate into your desk and burning stolen materials from the chemistry labs. It isn’t throwing lit matches at the other students. And it certainly isn’t—it isn’t _terrorizing_ the entire damn class with a vat of oil and a frozen turkey!”

 

“Really! I hadn’t heard about that one.”

 

The woman’s face deepens from pink to a dangerously purplish shade.

 

Besides her, Jamie snickers, kicking his dangling feet. He’s rolling a grubby spent match from god-knows-where between his fingers, the action compulsive, like the way a gambler pulls a lever. Lena shoots him a stern look and holds out her hand.

 

As she looks up, she narrowly avoids collision with the teacher’s finger, which she’s waggling inches in front of Lena’s face with all the force of a soldier swinging an axe.

 

“Well, let me assure you that it.” Swing. “Did.” Swing. “Happen!”

 

Jamie stares at Lena’s outstretched hand for a few seconds. Then shrugs and pops the match in his mouth.

 

“I’m sure it did—‘scuse me— _Jamie_!”

 

He sticks out his blackened tongue, no evidence of the match remaining. Lena winces. That can’t be healthy. Flecks of charcoal speckle his front teeth like spots on a robin’s egg.

 

The teacher sighs so hard in Lena’s direction that she swears she can smell all the ingredients of the woman’s breakfast.

 

“Really, I am terribly sorry ‘bout all of that, ma’am. But I’m just—not his mum.”

 

“ _Well_.” The woman rears back like a snake. “Haven’t I just been wasting my time. Who _are_ you, exactly, then?”

 

She shrugs. To be honest, she’s about done with this woman.

 

“Just the babysitter.”

 

()

 

“Six matches! You are certainly a hungry boy.”

 

Jamie snickers. “Hungry boy,” he parrots happily. He’s always so cooperative around Doctor Ziegler. It’s enormously frustrating. Lena wrinkles her nose at him to let him know she’s still mad—although she’s not anymore, not really. He grins brightly at her. Apparently he’s not fooled.

 

“I just can’t stop him. He’s too bloody fast.”

 

“Language.”

 

“He’s heard worse.”

 

“Of that I am certain.”

 

“Hey—not from me.”

 

The doctor’s lips draw into a taut line like an arrow being pulled back. Lena knows full well what she thinks of Jamie’s parents, although she’ll never say anything in front of him. Lena has to admit that they’re not exactly shining examples of parental aptitude.

 

“He will be fine,” the doctor says. “I would be surprised if there was anything left his stomach could not handle at this point.”

 

“Quiet, doc. He’ll hear it as a challenge.”

 

“Tires! Tires!”

 

“And your prosthetic is not giving you any trouble, Jamie?”

 

“Nope. I’m gonna eat tires! Tires!” chants Jamie.

 

“Yes, well, if tire is to be on the menu, at least cut it up into pieces first. Does wonders for the digestion.”

 

Lena cocks an eyebrow. “You say it like a joke, but…”

 

The doctor heaves a sigh. “And I am sure I will see the two of you again before long. In the meantime, here is a lollipop, Mister Jamison. Try to go easy on the matches.”

 

“Then gimme two,” he demands, already tearing the wrapper into shreds.

 

Doctor Ziegler doesn’t. It’s a losing battle, anyway. Jamie’s a little goat; a match is nothing compared to the dirt and nail varnish and gasoline Lena has caught him emptying down his gullet. She at least tries to stop him. His parents probably let him chew on sticks of chalk like they’re crackers.

 

They’re junkies, both of them, living in a rathole of a RV parked in the dusty trailer park at the far edge of town. Sometimes they pay Lena with bills and coins scratched from between the couch cushions and sometimes they forget altogether. At this point the money is moot. She’d rather Jamie get a square meal than take their last few dollars from his pa’s grimy curled hand.

 

She watches Jamie gnaw like a squirrel on the lollipop. The hard candy shatters between his crooked, slightly pointed teeth like concrete beneath a jackhammer. The whole thing’s gone in a matter of half a minute.

 

Fishing around in her bag, Lena extracts a wrinkled fiver.

 

“Hey, Mister Fawkes.”

 

“Junkrat,” he insists.

 

She rolls her eyes. She doesn’t know why he fancies that name so. “Junkie Jamie, then. What say you to a bubbly tea?”

 

He gives her a delighted, mildly terrifying smile that contains a great deal of teeth.

 

“Bubbly t—ea—aaa!”

 

The last syllable goes up and up, shrieking into the air like a bomb lobbed over a wall. This earns them a few hard looks from passersby. Eyes scraping over the boy’s sooty skin, his ragged ill-fitting shoes and the stacks of rubber bands he wears on his arms for bracelets.

Lena knows what they’re thinking: _white trash._ She smiles at them, hard. The Londoners used to eye her the same, muttering chav, cockney scum _. We’re all the same, love. Cheers._

()

 

How Lena Oxton ends up the sole resident Brit in the history of Gorree, Texas, population a fly’s breath shy of 16,000, is kind of a funny one.

 

Basically she got held up, broken up, and stuck up. First held up in the middle of a bunch of flight transfers en route to California by a delay at Lubbock airport. Broken up when she’d rented a car to drive the rest of the way and promptly wrecked it hurtling across the lanes of the 40 without checking her blind spot. Finally, stuck up like gum in hair in godforsaken Gorree, where she’d learned that no, the rental insurance wouldn’t cover the damages, and no, they would not be repairing the car.

 

In the several weeks it took to tow the car, figure out insurance, and sort out the legal weeds, she’d zipped all over the town, talked her way into credit lines at half a dozen retailers and found herself a temp job working check-in at a gun range. Gorree wasn’t _that_ bad, she found. It was only terrible in a sort of hicky, tumbleweedy, quintessentially small-town America way—and didn’t that make it charming of sorts? Wasn’t that what she’d wanted from her grand stateside adventure, anyway—the jukeboxes and the diner grease and the Ford exhaust? It was an experience! Anytime she got tired of it, she’d just hitchhike her way out of town in a flash.

 

In the meantime there was the work at the gun range to make ends meet, which was steady if uninteresting, and then in time there was the work with the kids, which was both less steady and far less uninteresting.

 

Jamie wasn’t the first—Lord knew if he were the first he’d likely have been the last. Neither was Jesse McCree, who, although he couldn’t put a scratch on the young Fawkes, was his own brand of spitfire. No, the first kid she’d babysat was Hana Song. Hana was an easy watch; the hardest part with her was getting beat at every single game in the arcade by a button-nosed eleven-year-old. When their schedules no longer matched up, she’d handed her off to Lucio, her coworker at the range and fellow babysitter extraordinaire. Now he’s the one complaining to Lena about getting his ass beat.

 

“Man, thank god she moved on to playing some online game. I really didn't need to be humiliated in public anymore.”

 

“She always looked bored.”

 

“ _So_ bored.”

 

“She’s only gonna get better, mate. Better get accustomed.”

 

“She’s got my blessing to get as good as she wants at anything, so long as she’s chewing on some other guy for practice.”

 

Lena grinds the undissolved sugar in her iced “tea” between her teeth. Americans do come up with some strange remixes on old favorites. “You pick up any new kids lately?”

 

“As a matter of fact, got two. Brothers—Hanzo and Genji. They’re all right so far. Mostly quiet. Really good at fighting. They’re into that martial arts stuff.”

 

“ _That_ sounds promising.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ve still got the real hellraisers in your corral.”

 

“The fun never ends. Jamie got himself in trouble again today.”

 

“You get called in for another parent-teacher conference?”

 

“I can see why they think I’m his mum, I’m around so much. I think you Americans get confused between us and the ozzies’ accents anyway.”

 

“Y’all don’t sound so different. Anyway, what’re you gonna do about that camping trip?”

 

“What d’you mean?”

 

“It’s coming up, and they don’t usually let bad kids go.”

 

“Jamie’s not a bad kid—”

 

“Ah, misspoke. But you know what I mean—have fun trying to convince a teacher that.”

 

“They’re not all stiffs.”

 

“But you gotta admit, it takes a whole ‘nother level of flexibility to agree that it’s a good idea to put Jamie Fawkes on a bus with fifty other kids and drive him up to the mountains for an, ah, idyllic weekend. Wasn’t there some incident not too long ago with a frozen turkey?”

 

“How does everyone know about that?” She’s got to ask Jamie about it next time she sees him.

 

“Small town, and the kid’s got a big personality.”

 

“We’ll see about the trip. If that’s the case, then Jesse might also have some trouble.”

 

“Man, I’d forgotten about that one. If they do let him go, just shake him down for guns beforehand, will you?”

 

“Will do—”

 

“And knives? And, I dunno, nailclippers? Anything sharp? Don’t give me that look, Oxton. You Brits may be more liberal, but I have a very healthy distrust of any kid who knows two more recipes than I do for moonshine, which is zero, for your reference, let _alone_ one who drives the family pickup at nine years old—”

 

()

 

The moonshine was an exaggeration, thinks Lena. Probably. She’d like to believe the pickup is too, but she’s witnessed Jesse rumbling around in the thing herself, slouched way down low in the seat to reach the pedals.

 

Jesse’s mom isn’t neglectful, really. She just has very different views than Lena does about what a fourth-grader can handle. When Jesse gets in a fight, which occurs about as frequently as needles do on a porcupine, she patches him up and asks no questions other than whether he won. She doesn’t mind that he sneaks beers out of the fridge now and again, or that he smokes; she’s a chimneystack herself. The air in the McCree house is so thick that Lena’s eyes sting.

 

She wanders in through the unlocked door. “Sharpshooter,” she calls. “Sheriff. McCree.”

 

“I ain’t no sheriff.”

 

That’s the fastest way to find him. Jesse McCree always did want to be the outlaw.

 

Outlaw he may not be quite yet, but he’s at least well on his way towards juvenile delinquency. Right now he’s still just young enough and charming enough that adults call him troublemaker and heartbreaker with fondness in their voices, and ruffle his hair afterwards. Five years from now, Lena isn’t so sure people will still be smiling. A couple too many scraps with the police, a few too many hearts broken—that’s all it’ll take for Gorree to turn on him like a viper. This town isn’t big enough for Jesse McCree, just like it isn’t big enough for Jamie. She worries for both of them.

 

Case in point: “Oof,” she says as he comes down the stairs and into the light. “That’s a nice shiner, cowboy.”

 

He shrugs with one shoulder, his mouth drawing a little to the side. He must’ve lost the fight; otherwise Lena’d have heard his bragging from outside the house.

 

“Play-by-play?”

 

“There wasn’t none.”

 

Lena waits. Jesse’s prickly whenever he gets beat. If he wants to talk, he’ll do it, and if he doesn’t, the devil himself with a whip couldn’t drag a conversation out of him.

 

He slouches past her and out onto the porch. They sit on the edge together. Jesse scratches patterns in the mutilated porch floor with his buck knife. Lena peers at the growing forest of pilfered road signs propped up in the distance—practice targets for Jesse’s BB.

 

He’s managed to hit the center of the ‘o’ in a stop sign so often that the red is scratched away.

 

Jesse slices out another curve on the floor. Awkwardly. Did they hurt his arm, too?

 

“Some new kids,” he says, finally. “Foreigners—Asians.”

 

“Oh. Gen—shoot, I can’t remember—one of them called Genni or something?”

 

“Genji. Naw, his brother.” Jesse spits his name. “ _Hanzo_.”

 

“Ah. I’ve heard a little about them already. Seems like they’re trained martial artists.”

 

“Martial arts my ass,” mutters Jesse. “Them samurais are gonna be toting an authentic American ass-whupping if they bother me again, that’s for damn sure. I’ll mop the whole damn school with that boy’s stupid fuckin’ ponytail. Looks like a goddamn cheerleader.”

 

“What’d they do to you, anyway?”

 

Jesse spits over the side of the porch. “Looked at me funny.” He glares at Lena when she laughs. “It’s no fuckin’ jokin’ matter. You gotta defend your turf ‘gainst new guys or they’ll be steppin’ all over the place like they owned it.”

 

“And we can’t have that, can we.”

 

“No, sir.”

 

“It’d be the worst if there were somebody—some outlaw—high-stepping it everywhere like he owned the place. That would be the absolute pits.”

 

“Alright, alright, I got your point. Quit makin’ fun.”

 

“If I can offer a suggestion, mate—maybe take it easy and try talking to the guy first, next time? There’s no need to step off on the wrong foot rightaway. And I hate to say this, but if the teachers catch wind of more trouble, you won’t be able to go on that trip.”

 

After a minute, Jesse says darkly, “Well I sure won’t make a need if he don’t.”

 

Lena supposes that’s the best she’ll get out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like comment and subscribe for more adventures with roadrunner junkbaby and billy the kid


	2. Chapter 2

“…and his teacher hasn’t seen him since.”

 

Lucio pauses mid-mop. Mouths, _Jamie?_

Lena nods awkwardly. Her phone shifts between her cheek and shoulder.

 

“Of course we tried his primary contact number first, but there wasn’t a response. The message said the line’d been cut off. And no one’s been in to update the number…”

 

“I’ll see if I can find him. I have a few ideas.”

 

“Thanks, Lena. You’re really a champ for doing this for him.”

 

“It’s no trouble.”

 

“Lemme take a wild guess,” says Lucio as she hangs up. “You’re about to owe me some loaded fries ‘cause you need me to cover your shift ASAP.”

 

“You know the drill.”

 

“He skip school again?”

 

“Nah. Only, uh, disappeared in the middle of the day.”

 

“Ah, the old hit-and-run. You can’t keep doing this, London. Running off in the middle of jobs at all hours, payin’ for him with your own money… you’re lucky the boss ain’t never around here to see how often you’re off chasing that kid.”

 

“That’s why I’m _so thankful_ for the amazing, precious, wonderful friends I’ve made here, who’ll always be here to cover me—”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Get the fries with the jalapenos on top, will you?”

 

“Roger that. See ya in a few.”

 

“Make sure they don’t skimp!” Lucio calls after her as the door bangs shut.

 

Jamie isn’t making a nuisance of himself at the local auto shop, or spinning on the high stools at the tiny bubble tea place, or at his “hideout” under the bleachers at the back of the park. But she doesn’t have to go much further to find him; there he is, nothing but a flash of dusty hair and stark overhead shadow, running circles by himself on the baseball diamond.

 

“Hey Jamie,” she calls as she approaches. “Who’re you playing against?”

 

“I’m not playin’. I’m _training._ ” Jamie sprints past her from third to home, where he skids down onto his back and abruptly begins doing situps.

 

“Training? What for?”

 

“To get strong. Shove over. You’re on my course.”

 

“ _Your_ course! Well, I’ll be your spotter then.” Kneeling next to him, she holds his shoes down. The ball joint of his prosthetic’s ankle beams a hot flash of white noon sun into her eyes periodically as it flexes with his movements. He’s so agile on it that she forgets he’s only got the one real leg, sometimes.

 

Jamie leaps up so fast that he nearly knees her in the nose, and resumes his laps.

 

She jogs alongside him. The sun beats down on them like fists, and the dust trailing after Jamie tickles her nose. She can sprint all damn day if necessary.

 

After another six or seven laps around the bases, Jamie is flagging visibly.

 

“Phew!” Lena exclaims loudly, slowing down. “I’m beat.” She’s not, but she definitely is sweating like a pig. “You keep going, roadrunner. I’m going to go take a break. Drink some nice cold pearl tea.”

 

Jamie sullenly completes another two laps before flopping down next to her, panting. He stabs the straw she’s brought for him into the drink’s lid like he’s sinking a dagger into someone.

 

“I’m going to bring all my stuff to camp.”

 

“Which stuff?”

 

“ _All_ of it,” he repeats ominously. “And then I’m gonna build the biggest bomb and I’m gonna blow ‘im up.”

 

“Who?”

 

“All them. I hate ‘em all. I’m going to blow the whole fuckin’ school up.”

 

“What happened?”

 

He curls a little. Picks at a scab on his real knee. “Don’ wanna talk about it.”

 

“Alright. I’d like to know, though.”

 

“Why? So what? What’re you gonna do about it? You can’t do shit anyhow.”

 

“I know what I can and can’t do. You don’t need to tell me.” She stretches her arms over her head. Dear lord, it’s hot enough out to iron a shirt. She wonders how long Jamie was out here running around for. “But you’ll feel better if you talk about it. Promise.”

 

“…’t me inna locker.”

 

“Come again?”

 

“Put me in a locker. An’ when I busted out I was late for class anyway already so I went here. I’m gonna quit school and I’m gonna run laps everyday and build lots of ‘splosives, and I’m gonna be the strongest. No one learns anything in school anyhow.”

 

“Wankers. What a lot of cowards. Ganging’ up on—”

 

“Shut up! I ain’t a _cripple—_ ”

 

“—I was going to say one person. C’mon, Jamie, get a grip. You know I’d never call you that.”

 

“They all do,” he mumbles, digging his nails around the edges of the scab. “’s why I’m gonna blow ‘em up. Take all their legs and arms off too.”

 

“Hey, stop picking at that for a second. It’s going to get infected.” When he doesn’t, she pulls his hand off. Unusually, he holds onto it for a few seconds before drawing away—when it comes to contact, Jamie’s usually fidgety as a rabbit in a foxhole.

 

“Alright,” she continues. “Wanna hear my plan?”

 

“I’m gonna, I’m gonna buy a hundred thousand liters of petrol, and I’m gonna light it all up…”

 

“Best buy yourself a bus too while you’re at it, ‘cause I don’t know how else you’re going to bring all that with you. Here’s the plan: you tell me the names of the kids who did that, I’ll let the adults at school know what happened, and you won’t get into trouble. Because I got to tell you, your teacher told me that if you’re absent again, or if you get into another fight, or”—how to cover everything Jamie could think up? She finishes lamely—“or, uh, anything else happens, you won’t be able to go on the camping trip.”

 

“…fine.”

 

“Alright.”

 

“But I ain’t tellin’ nobody’s names.”

 

She sighs. “OK. But I’m not kidding about the camping thing. And now that that’s finished, Master Fawkes, can we get out of here? I’m melting.”

 

“Where’re we going?”

 

“Library. You got homework, Mister—don’t think because you weren’t there you don’t have to deal with it.”

 

“I can’t go there. I got banned, remember?” he says hopefully.

 

Ah, that’s right. Libraries aren’t the biggest fans of fire. She answers, “Not if you’re with an adult, you’re not.”

 

“…I ain’t gonna do no homework.”

 

“And we’ll talk about that at the library. Come on, it’s air-conditioned and I’m fit to roast.” She hops off the bench and looks at him, expectant. After a second he follows.

 

As they begin to walk out of the park, she says, “Speaking of roasting, have I got a question for you. You know anything about some madman who showed up to school with a frozen turkey and a pot of oil? Heard he nearly made a— _big splash_ —at the local elementary school—”

 

()

 

Having parked Jamie under the watchful eye of the head librarian—“if I so much as _sense_ a match comin’ out of, of, of _anywhere_ , I’m shippin’ you straight back to the school, you hear?”—Lena makes a pit stop at the shake shop to get Lucio’s precious fries and then doubles back towards the range.

 

But as she’s jogging through the parking lot, she suddenly remembers. She gives the fries in the bag a hard look.

 

“Bloody hell. Forgot those bloody jalapenos like a fool, didn’t I—”

 

“ _Merde_!”

 

“Wh—oh!—”

 

But it’s too late; Lena rams straight into the woman crossing the lot, and her beverage spills all over her crisp black blouse. The liquid, which smells rather like a _very_ stiff drink, courses through her shirt and soaks the upper part of her bra. _That’s a pretty daring shirt to wear in the daytime_ , thinks Lena haphazardly. _Rather sheer, isn’t it?_

 

The woman is staring oddly at her. For the briefest instant, a whisper of a smile plays over her lips, barely there and quickly gone as a breeze in mid-summer. It rather seems to say, _I caught you out._

Lena rears back. In her haste she ends up grabbing a greasy, slightly cheesy napkin out of the bag and offering it to the woman.

 

“Sorry—so sorry, love, didn’t see you coming there.”

 

The woman looks at the napkin like Lena’s just offered her a handful of worms.

 

“Evidently,” she says, one brow arched taut as a bowstring. Under her breath, she mutters something: “ _Imbécile_ …”

 

Lena’s not sure what that means, but she’s pretty sure it’s not flattering. As the woman pivots on her heel and keeps walking, Lena takes a deep breath, and fixes her fallen smile back onto her face.

 

“You sound like you’re from the continent! France, maybe?”

 

The woman just keeps walking. Lena trots beside her, fixedly beaming that smile at her like a pair of floodlights. She’s found that a determined smile does wonders with suspicious strangers. It certainly warmed Gorree’s heart to her.

 

“Yes,” the woman says, acidly, when Lena refuses to give up.

 

“Nice! We’re practically neighbors then—I’m from the UK. Just across the way. Am I surprised to see someone from Europe here. Seems like Gorree doesn’t exactly, uh, get a lot of overseas visitors—”

 

The woman spins on her heel.

 

“You seem to be under the impression that because we share some small geographical similarity that we have something to talk about,” she says. “In fact, _ma chère_ , that mouth of yours would be much prettier if it were still. I came here to shoot, not to hold conversational classes with a schoolgirl.”

 

Lena slows involuntarily, staring hard at the woman as she stalks like a tigress through the door and slips inside. Well! If that wasn’t about the rudest bloody thing she’s heard from any arsehole this side of the Atlantic! She can bugger straight off back to where she came from!

 

The woman is gone by the time Lena gets through the door. She catches a glimpse of her at one of the bays at the back of the range.

 

“Oxton back in the house,” says Lucio. “Did you catch him?”

 

“Yeah,” she answers distractedly.

 

“What’re you glaring over there for? Did that trash can shoot your mother or something?”

 

She yanks her gaze away from the open doorway. In the distance the woman already has her muffs on, pistol blazing.

 

“’s nothing. Yeah, I caught him. He ran off because some kids were picking on him. Again.”

 

“Ah, bastards. Ganging up on a kid, and one who’s only got the one leg on top of that. Their parents should beat their asses for it.”

 

“I’d let the school know so they could notify them, but he wouldn’t give me any names.”

 

“Kids got their pride same as adults do—ooh, Lena, c’mon! Where’s my spice at? You know how I feel about bland-ass fries, there’s no tragedy greater on this green earth—”

 

“Sorry,” she says. She realizes she’s still got that greasy napkin crumpled in her fist. Balling it up, she aims at the garbage bin. She can’t quite keep from imagining the Frenchwoman’s pert ponytail in place of the bin’s lip.

 

Lucio taps out a drumroll on the desk: “She aims—”

 

_Imbécile yourself._

_Wanker._

“—and scores, go-oooal for Manchester United!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> google searches while writing this chapter include "explosives for kids" "acetylene on fire" and "french clumsy idiot" like comment and subscribe yall


	3. Chapter 3

Monday: T minus seven days to camp. No call from any teachers. Jesse complains that class is boring.

 

Tuesday: T minus six. No call. However, Jesse has got it into his head that he needs to learn archery. Immediately. He won’t say why, and spends the afternoon shooting arrows at a U-turn sign with frightening inaccuracy and a great deal of cursing. Lena takes shelter on the porch behind a large rocking chair until Ms. McCree arrives to relieve her.

 

On Wednesday Jamie reports that they are going to have a mousetrap car competition in science class. The goal is to build the car that moves the farthest, with only a mousetrap to power it. Jamie doesn’t do well in the practice rounds. He spends all afternoon squatting in an empty lot in the trailer park, looking up things on Lena’s phone, scribbling notes in his incomprehensible handwriting, muttering to himself, and otherwise totally ignoring her.

 

Lena gets a bad feeling.

 

On Thursday nothing much happens, except for Jesse managing to launch two arrows through the window of the new admin building and himself back into detention. Trip status: pending, but shaky. Very shaky.

 

Then comes Friday.

 

On Friday, Jamie decides to jazz up his vehicle.

 

()

 

“Do you know what calcium carbide, water, and fire mix together to make? No, I wasn’t asking for a—not you. Put your—please put your hand _down_ , Jamison.”

 

“Um… something… that makes a car go fast?” offers Lena.

 

“Makes it go ka- _boom_! We were the fastest!”

 

“An acetylene torch, Miss Oxton. That’s what it makes.”

 

“….Ah. That’s, er, explosive-y? I take it?”

 

“He set himself, Miss Zhou here, and this week’s lab assignments on fire.”

 

“And then he dumped a whole bottle of water on me.”

 

“I was puttin’ ya out, lame-brain.”

 

The girl shoots Lena a long-suffering look over the rim of her glasses. Her hair is still dripping. “He melted the homework, too,” she adds.

 

“ _Too_? I didn’t melt ya. ‘Less you’re saying you’re a wicked witch, eh-heh-heh. And ‘sides, it was worth a little tiii-ny toasty burn, ‘cause we won first, don’t you know!”

 

The girl flicks one of her sopping bangs. “No. We did not win.”

 

“But we _should’ve_.”

 

“What you _should_ do is go to prison! You nearly killed Hammie!”

 

“Ol’ Glazed Ham was bored shitle—bored outta his mind in there anyway. I just gave ‘im a little bit of color back in the old hair, didn’t I!”

 

“If you mean you turned it all white from stress, sure!”

 

“Oi! It’s still perfectly _chestnut-colored_!”

 

Lena pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m—I’m sorry, but who’s Hammie?”

 

“Not another child, Miss Oxton, or rest assured you’d be conferencing with the police deputy and not me.”

 

“Hammie was the class hamster—”

 

“ _Is,_ not _was_ , he’s still kickin’ and noshin’ away on his stupid seeds, ain’t he—”

 

“No thanks to you! Your stupid rocket blasted into the cage and nearly cut Hammie’s head off.”

 

“Yeah, it did! _And_ the cage was like fifty feet behind the finish line! So we won first, fair and square—”

 

“You’ve made your feelings on that subject abundantly clear, Mister Fawkes. Now I suggest sitting down and not throwing anymore hissy fits about first prizes.”

 

Jamie goes sulkily silent. With his arms crossed high over his chest, elbows sticking out like crab’s claws, and hunkered down like a crow in a storm, he looks like a disgruntled scarecrow as he glowers at Mei. Lena has to bite down the urge to laugh.

 

The one bright spot in all this is that Mei’s mother seems more amused than enraged by the situation. “Anyway,” she laughs, “all’s well that ends well. Mei isn’t hurt, so—”

 

“ _Mother_. That is not the point.”

 

“Ooooh, _that is not the point._ Well what is it then, Miss Straight-As?”

 

“Jamie, c’mon. And for god’s sake would you put that lighter away—haven’t you had enough for today?”

 

“N-ope.”

 

“You’d better sit over here, mama. He might put your jacket on fire.”

 

()

 

The atmosphere gets decidedly tenser after Mei leaves with her mom. The vice principal looks down at a (thick) file on Jamie’s school history with a terse expression. Lena already knows what he’s going to say.

 

“Listen,” she rushes before he can open his mouth. “If you think about it, none of this really comes from a bad place.”

 

“Ms. Fawkes—”

 

“Oxton, not his mom—”

 

“—Ms. Oxton—”

 

“I mean, wasn’t that sort of the point of the competition?”

 

The vice principal’s face pinches inwards like a flower withering. “As I understood it, the, ah, point of the competition was that the mousetrap would provide the only motive power of the students’ vehicles.”

 

“…and that’s, uh, very true, yes—but he just wanted to win, you know? You can’t blame a kid for getting into his schoolwork. That’s a good thing! You know, I actually think it’s commendable that he used his—uh, chemical knowledge to his advantage! No one was hurt—”

 

“—I beg to dif—”

 

“—He didn’t _mean_ to hurt anyone. Jamie didn’t have bad intentions.”

 

“…I see your point, Ms. Oxton. Unfortunately, in Jamison’s case, time and time again we’ve seen that _even_ if does have the best of intentions, the results are too often—disastrous. I’m sorry to say it, but given the history he’s had at this institution, I simply can’t justify sending him on the Big Bend trip.”

 

Jamie makes a sharp movement that looks too much like flicking the lighter for Lena’s comfort. She swats at the thing, but Jamie just holds onto it more tightly.

 

“I can’t manage him. His teachers can’t manage him, and I doubt the camp counselors will do better. He’s just plain unmanageable.”

 

“That’s not true. I get along fine with him.”

 

“Then it’s unfortunate that you won’t be on this trip,” he says with an air of finality.

 

And then, Lena gets a dangerous idea.

 

“But I could be,” she says slowly.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“I could go on the trip. You’re looking for volunteers to help manage, aren’t you?”

 

“I don’t think that this—”

 

“I know, because I keep seeing it on those e-mails you’re always blasting off. In fact, you’re having a rather hard time of it finding people to go. Those parents, always so busy with their jobs.”

 

“You’re saying you don’t have a job?”

 

“Not the kind that’d mind if I took a week off.” She’s getting more and more excited. “If I go, then I can help watch Jamie. No more ‘unmanageable.’ Problem solved, eh?”

 

When he remains silent, she adds, “And if I go, you can stop digging around the town for volunteers. Let’s face it, it’s already Thursday, and the class leaves on Monday. You’re not going to find anyone else.”

 

The vice principal breathes heavily in the silence that follows, as if to remind them, _I’m still here and I’m still damn irritated_. Lena smiles brightly at him. Even Jamie has put on his good-behavior front, although his wide, forced grin gives him the air of a possessed garden gnome trying to blend in at the local home improvement store.

 

“Fine,” he says at last. “You go, Jamison goes. _But_. If we hear even a hint of a rumor of explosives, or fires, or fights, or, or any sort of destruction”—he stabs his finger into his desk like a stake through a coffin—“he comes straight back. No questions, no second chances.”

 

Lena heaves a sigh of relief. “Good,” she says over the growing volume of Jamie’s cackling. “Great, that—you, have, uh, come around and made the right decision. You won’t regret it.”

 

“We’ll let time tell,” he says sourly. “Now, if we’ve nothing else to discuss”—and he makes a sort of brushing motion at the two of them like he’s sweeping crumbs off his desk.

 

The second the door closes behind them, Jamie streaks off on a screeching victory lap down and up the hallway. Lena follows more slowly. It’s just beginning to dawn on her what she’s signed herself up for.

 

Really, she tells herself, how difficult can it be? She’s babysat Jamie before. Shepherding him and forty-five other fourth-graders through a weeklong excursion in the wilderness shouldn’t be too bad. It’ll be lovely, to be surrounded by all that beautiful flammable nature. And all those adorable prey—er, animals. Out of reach of phone service and the security blanket of any 911 operator. Miles from any hospital.

 

Okay. Honestly, it might be kind of bad.

 

()

 

“No lighter?”

 

“Nuh-uh.”

 

“No matches?”

 

“Nuh-uh.”

 

“No chemicals?”

 

“Nuh-uh.”

 

“Really. You’re sure about that one?”

 

“Nuh—I mean, yeah.

 

“So you’re bringing that big bottle of cleaning fluid just in case the bus windows get dirty? That’s quite considerate of you.”

 

“Oh, hah-hah. That, er, doesn’t count.”

 

“Jamie.”

 

“What? I can’t do nothing without matches anyway, you know!”

 

“I’m putting it back.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“And that’s not water in that bottle.”

 

“It _is_. Our water just runs weird-colored!”

 

Lena stares at him blearily. She has had entirely too little tea to be functioning at this hour, thank you. “I know what petrol smells like, Junkie.”

 

“… _Fine!_ ”

 

“Toothbrush?”

 

“What?”

 

“Do you have a toothbrush somewhere in—all that?”

 

“Lost it.”

 

“Down the rubbish bin, more likely. I’m getting you one from the gas station.”

 

“My teeth ain’t rotten! Doctor Ziegler gave me lollies!”

 

“Hard luck—I’m not as soft on you as the good doctor. Come on, now. It’s just round the corner.”

 

“But we’re going to be late. It’s already six-forty and we gotta leave at seven.”

 

“Bloody… Alright, double-time it then, lad. We’re not leaving without.”

 

“Wh—jus—hang on a tick, will ya! I’m coming, I’m coming—”

 

()

 

“—no, ma’am, she still hasn’t picked up—ah, _there_ she comes now, and Jamison too. Miss Oxton, sweetie, run! We called you ‘bout ten times already. We’re fixin’ to leave!”

 

“Sorry! Coming, coming. We had to, ah, make some emergency supply runs.”

 

“I’m sure you did, but we all got to head out. On, both of you. Your group is, let’s see—ah, cabin nine, with the Shimadas and Jesse.”

 

 _The Shimadas—aren’t those the new kids?_ Lena’s heart sinks. This is going downhill much more rapidly than she’d anticipated.

 

“Not Jesse McCree?” she pants hopefully, shoving Jamie and his backpack through the door, the latter of which is so fat that she feels like she’s stuffing a marshmallow through a straw. _Blimey, what’s in there, anyway? I don’t want to just search the bloody thing, but at this rate—_

 

“That’d better be the one, honey, cause I sure as heaven hope there ain’t two of them.”

 

“But I thought Jesse doesn’t—really like—”

 

“Now I do realize we wouldn’t normally mix the ladies and the gents, but since y’all joined the trip so late, we had to make do.”

 

“No—that’s not a problem, but—”

 

“How- _ever_ , luckily another cabin leader volunteered last-minute-like with the Shimadas, and she’s a re-aaal lady—so you won’t be alone with those rough-and-tumble boys! Amelie! Amelie, honey—here’s the other half of y’all’s cabin!”

 

 _Amelie_?

 

Lena squints as she clambers up the bus stairs and into darkness. Abruptly she stumbles into Jamie, or more accurately, his backpack, which propels her as energetically backwards as a racquet launching a tennis ball. She trips, nearly falls straight back out of the bus, and only narrowly rights herself by hooking an arm around the fare box, banging her elbow badly in the process. A wave of tittering rises from the half-asleep children like a chorus of sparrows.

 

“Oooh, careful, sugar. Don’t get hurt before the trip’s even started, now.”

 

“I’m okay, thanks,” grits out Lena, gripping her elbow. Her bones feel like they’re vibrating. _Bloody hell. That’s definitely gonna bruise later._

 

Jamie, meanwhile, is still standing stock-still in the middle of the aisle, gaping down it as if there’s a war chest of military equipment lying open at the end or something.

 

“C’mon, Jamie—let’s sit.”

 

“Wow. She’s _pretty_.”

 

The bad feeling Lena’s been holding in her chest all weekend intensifies as she peers over Jamie’s head.

 

Somehow, the perfectly-quirked cupid’s bow perched like a petal at the end of the aisle feels as familiar to Lena as the freckles on her own face.

 

 _“L'histoire se répéte, ma chère_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tracer should probably have searched that backpack


End file.
